Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up: 9 November 2017
Whether it’s AI to bridge cryptocurrencies or someone accidentally losing it, something is always going on, whether right or wrong in the world of blockchain and Bitcoin. Our latest round-up features Parity, AiX, R3 and SIA.
More than $300 million in the Ether lost
We all make mistakes, but for Parity, it could cause massive ramifications after a bug in its digital wallet service resulted in the loss of more than $300 million in the cryptocurrency, Ether. This came after a fix to a previous bug which allowed hackers to steal $32 million out of multi-signature wallets.
The result led to a Github user, devops199, to accidentally trigger a new flaw left by Parity giving the user ownership of digital multi-signature wallets. Clearly panicked, the user deleted the code that transferred the owners to themselves. Unfortunately, rather than returning the money, it locked out all funds with no way of accessing. Parity is still trying to resolve the issue and have since released a statement saying it’s informed affected users and is currently analysing the situation.
While it’s bad times for Parity, it’s a not all doom and gloom for SIA and R3 who have partnered to speed up the global development and adoption of blockchain applications by leveraging SIAnet’s 600 nodes provided to financial institutions, corporates and public administrations.
As part of the deal, SIA will build a “secure and protected” network called SIAchain, which will be integrated with R3’s Corda platform to enable SIA customers to run CordDapps – apps designed to meet the needs of institutions across the banking and finance sector. Both say the first CorDapps on SIAchain will be available from Q1 2018.
Finally, smart move by AiX, with its unveiling of the first artificial intelligence (AI) broker to bridge the worlds of cryptocurrencies and traditional financial markets. AiX says by executing trades on behalf of traders and reducing commissions by up to 95%, its AI will “disrupt” the traditional brokerage model.
Jos Evans, founder and CEO of AiX, says it offers cross-market trades using the “simplest of interfaces, a chatbot” and “most importantly, we will use AI to optimise every trade”. AiX’s AI engine is powered by Rainbird, the first auditable cognitive reasoning engine.
